Comparison of Triggers and Conditions

Users who are new to adTempus sometimes have trouble knowing when to use Triggers and when to use Conditions, and often use Conditions when they should be using Triggers.

The key point to remember is that Triggers are "active," while conditions are "passive." This means that a Trigger can cause a job to run. A Condition can never "cause" a job to run; it just determines whether a job (or step) is allowed to run when something else triggers the job. Conditions are never evaluated until the job has been triggered (started) by a trigger, manual execution, or a Response on another job.

For example, adTempus includes both a File Trigger and a File Condition, which have similar options and features. When you add a File Trigger to a job, the job is triggered (started) when files are created, modified, or deleted (depending on the File Trigger settings). When you add a File Condition to a job, the job still must be triggered by some other means. Once the job is triggered, the File Condition is used to determine whether the job should continue running.

The confusion between Triggers and Conditions appears most often when a user wants a job ("Job B") to run when another job ("Job A") finishes. Users often try to configure this by giving "Job B" a Job Condition on "Job A." Because the condition is passive, though, it has no effect unless something else triggers "Job A." For this scenario you would use a Job Trigger or a Job Control Action instead.